Sagittarius Confidential (for Sun and ascendant)

By Eric Francis

Where we find you at the beginning of a new decade is in that delicate place of transposing potential into manifestation. You could say that is always true, but there are times when we have to get the idea out of our heads and onto the ground, and this is one of them. Every cell in your body is reminding you that your life is now about making it real; getting real. You have had so many visions of how your life can be the past year, and your mind has been racing.

True, it’s been racing in a number of directions. You have not exactly been the one-pointed arrow of intention that your sign represents; you have, so far as I can see, been in an unusual mode of crisis for a while that has only recently begun to ease off. Still, there is some tension in your heart and soul; some sense of having lost your way. This is a very meaningful state of being mixed up or disoriented: much more meaningful than feeling confident, because what you learn from your space of not knowing and not feeling your direction will tell you everything you need to know to find that direction.

Over the past year, you’ve had several unusual tastes of how good your life can be, and how difficult, and how extreme; and you’ve got a sense of the fragile path we tread on the planet. You have discovered how much hinges on this ineffable thing we call faith, particularly in yourself. I would guess that despite your usual persona of someone who is visiting from another planet, you are finding reasons to feel like you’re actually at home on this one. Interesting that Sagittarius is ruled by the Earth in the method outlined in Alice Bailey’s Esoteric Astrology.

Pluto, from Sagittarius to Capricorn

Pluto, the lord of evolution and transformation, spent over a decade in your sign, making its final exit early in 2009. Many of you have reported what it was like to have Lord Shiva come through your life like the F Train. So let’s take a few moments and review your first year with Pluto out of your sign.

Even though astrologers are beginning to think of Pluto as a regenerative soul force rather than a destructive one, the truth is that Pluto transits often draw people into the deepest, darkest depths of themselves. Pluto was in Sagittarius so long you likely forgot what it was like to have it anywhere else, though if you consider some of what you went through in the late 80s and early 90s you will have a clue. Pluto in your sign pushed you to change, to become and most of all to envision your life; you may have had to find a new vision every day.

At times, you clashed with others and at other times you felt compelled to make open war. I would guess that while you benefited from Pluto’s presence and while you must surely miss it in some ways, you would not want to repeat the past decade for anything. The thing to remember is that the experience changed you, and you will not change back. I believe that when outer planets come through our lives, we pass through a gateway. We are different, and the energy of the sign itself is activated; the world has become a rather Sagittarian place in the past decade: full of ideology, global theories and awareness and lots of fundamentalist bluster.

I trust you’ve learned to temper yourself as this process has gone on; to practice the restraint that gives you credibility.

Now Pluto is in Capricorn, which is pushing you in a new direction: self-sufficiency. I am inclined to say radical self-sufficiency, but by radical, I mean getting down to your roots. Part of this is going beyond your dependency on structure. For your freewheeling tendencies, you are someone who understands the benefits of leaning on a system. Now, you are taking the step of becoming the system you need to lean on; this is not the time for you to trust externals. And assuming you plan on keeping your money in the bank and not in your mattress, you need to know exactly what bank it’s in.

More to the point, your efforts at financial independence need to be coordinated with actual improvements in your life. Money in itself is merely energy or potential; what we do with it, and how we apply it, are what matters.

Close up on Financial Independence

Nobody would believe you suffer from a lack of self-esteem, but your astrology says you’re working out some deep issues of self-worth. I think that if astrology were to serve humanity to the greatest extent possible, it would devote itself to one issue: helping people heal and even discover their self-esteem. Self-esteem ties together how we feel about being alive, our sense of commitment, what we think we have to work with and what we actually have to work with.

Nearly everyone starts with a disadvantage here; we come from a society that encourages us to evade responsibility, deny real participation and never actually grow up. You have an advantage: you were born with a seemingly mature set of values. The problem, as referenced in the section above, involves what those values are about; and in reality they are getting old — but the good news there is that they are all up for renovation. So, too, is your concept of self-respect. And this ties directly into your quest not just for money but your obsession with being financially independent.

Let’s draw a direct parallel: self-esteem is financial independence.

Let’s identify the problem: in a word, guilt. I recognize that I am probably the first astrologer to suggest that, categorically enough to say here, there is a guilt issue inherent in Sagittarius, but we find it in Capricorn in the 2nd house. Guilt is the shadow side of Capricorn, and you can be sure that a good few of the Sagittarians that you’ve heard from who have made their way in the world have done so specifically by overcoming this issue.

Now the major transits are catching up with this issue, in the form of Pluto making its long, long trek across your 2nd solar house, Capricorn. I suggest that as part of this process you make a conscious effort to replace guilt with ethics. Guilt is insidious. It takes a thousand forms and wears a million disguises. It may be the single most serious problem faced by, or implanted in, human consciousness. It is the cause and core of nearly all insanity; it replaces love in relationships; and if not addressed, it stalks us even unto the grave. I am not sure you’ve identified this issue and if you have, and if you’ve addressed it, you can comment better than anyone on how important it is to sanity.

Looking at the Patterns

Lately, you’re getting a taste of why so few people try to exceed what seems to be their lot in life: the moment you aspire to anything new, it seems you meet some kind of resistance.

New is novel and exciting, but new does not stay new for long, and the universe is made of dependable patterns. In reading those patterns, I want to suggest some priorities and considerations, beginning with something not to worry about: you are safe. That is a bold statement to make on a planet that is rife with anxiety, with authentic concern and with this strange thing called terror, which has been adopted into a full-on religion: terrorism, which we cannot live through one day without hearing about at least 100 times.

Alas, I am here to tell you that you can relax. You have set your life in the right direction; you have endured many enforced changes; you have been pushed to grow and to grow up so many times that you’ve adopted this as a dependable method when challenges beckon. You’ve learned not to be scared of your own shadow, and you’ve made some critical decisions that have oriented you on a path of self-sufficiency. Most vital to a Sagittarius, you have noticed that you really do have good ideas. I will devote a whole section to this in a little while: your path to financial self-sufficiency, and your good ideas, are one concept. That you have the capacity to be a free thinker and to be economically free are the same thing.

But this is not exactly why I’m saying you’re safe; my reasoning is astrological in nature — Jupiter making its way across Pisces, your 4th solar house, bestows protection and freedom, and is here to remind you that you have room to grow; you have room to expand. I suggest that if you want to cultivate this feeling of security and potential, keep a primary focus on your home. Establish your home as your base of personal and business operations. I suggest you do this as a conscious act, making modest investments in both functionality and comfort. In recent years you have felt anything but stable; and now is the time to experiment with some grounding.

How to Economize

I recognize that there are many pressures in your life to economize. Take them seriously, but not too seriously. The thing to cut out is waste, rather than practicality, function or a bit of necessary indulgence. There is always plenty of waste to go around. Start with getting rid of that first.

Though you would be the last person most astrologers would remind of this, remember the necessity for excess in human existence. Bacchus, the god of grapes and wine, was one of the most revered deities of Roman antiquity (successor to Dionysus, who was even more revered). Bacchus pushed the lines of gender, of sanity and of reason, and it’s necessary to make sure you do these things at regular intervals. I remind you now because your tendency of late is to play your cards close to the vest, to honor your limitations and to be oddly cautious; you may wonder what has come over you. It’s always good to be aware of the existence of boundaries and limits; and it’s necessary to push them as well.

The point of the protection you’re being offered is not for you to ease back and do nothing: it’s to give you a platform to work from to accomplish some of what you have determined is possible or at least what you want. This is protection on the move: functional safety. One way to look at it is as an airbag: it’s working when you’re not aware of it, but it’s useless when the car is sitting in the driveway. Therefore, this is the kind of protection that is saying: get out and drive around.

While you have significant influences calling on you to pull back, the real direction of your life is toward some kind of creative explosion wherein you explore the intersection between who you are and what you express. Expression, creation and identity are about to reveal themselves as one entity, and that entity is you. Daring, yes: it’s about the biggest chance that a person can take, and it helps to do so with some confidence; even if that confidence is designed to help you feel safe enough to take the first step.

Close Approaches, Small Causes, Big Effects

Your charts this year remind me a little of visiting Amsterdam. I’ve already mentioned the need for inviting Bacchus into your life, but it’s the near-miss quality of Amsterdam that I love the most. On a single day in that city you might ‘almost’ get run over by a bicycle or tram five times, but it doesn’t happen. You don’t want to push this one too far — each near miss would make a good reminder to pay that much more attention. Neither do you need to worry too much about brushes with success that qualify as near-miss events. Let them go by and see them for what they are.

The near-miss property is working independently of various other things going on for you. It’s kind of a sideshow, with its own particular entertainment and metaphysical value. It’s here to remind you that you’re on the edge: in every way. Allow that sense of being on the edge to be your constant companion. Remember how many positive developments have happened to you at other times when you lived a bit dangerously. I’m kind of laughing that I’m saying this to you, but certain distinct elements in your chart say you’ve been a bit meticulous and overcautious lately, but that is just one aspect of your charts.

Indeed, many aspects of your life are guiding you toward taking a chance that you may not be aware exists yet. As I read the charts, this is a creative chance of some kind; yet one that requires you to redefine yourself in the process of exploring it. I am suggesting here that the subtle ways you redefine and rethink your identity are consistent with developing a new creative pattern, therefore having new ideas; and that at a certain point in the middle of the year, you take a chance on the whole thing: you, the idea and something in a relationship; this looks like a relationship with several people: perhaps a group endeavor that you instigate.

Meanwhile, you’re on another kind of edge: understanding the influence that you have in the world. The place to start this conversation is to admit that you do have an influence at all; the question is, which, and how.

While you’re watching the near misses go by, I suggest you pay attention to the ways that your decisions influence the world around you. In order to do this, you will need to be extra observant, and apply a bit of theory. You of all people do not exist in a vacuum: that is to say, it seems like everything you do and think is part of a community process. This works in overt ways and covert ways. Overtly, you are considered by others to be a leader. Covertly, the thoughts you think subtly influence a great many other people around you.

What I will call the ‘influence effect’ is subtle, though I suggest you be observant at two kinds of moments: when you feel you don’t have any influence at all; and when you feel curious. These moments — if you can step out of them and see them clearly — are the ones where you will discover where your true power resides.

The One Mistake You Can Stop Making

Is there an error you’re making again and again? I don’t see exactly what it is — but I have a description. It involves what you know, but forget that you know, about yourself. Mixed in may be the fear, or the sense, that other people know something about you that would change their opinion about you; which you assume that they know, whether this is true or not; and then a series of judgments that you assume others have, which may or may not be true.

You are not as transparent as you think. Yet parallel to that fact is another: you can afford to be more transparent, and doing so would ease a kind of psychic tension that you tend to carry around with you. This is a big weight, carried by most of the human race. Most of this involves what is going to be known about our sexual reality.

I suggest you take comfort in the fact that eventually, everything about you will be known; that ultimately, there are no secrets, and therefore, you have no reason to invest energy in the attempt to hide anything from the world. It’s not just that the attempt to hide takes energy; rather, it’s that it creates an interference pattern around you. It’s like a distraction or veil that hides who you are in those moments when what you want is to be sending the signal that you are an authentic person. Understanding something about the Sagittarian nature, you may be deliberately attempting to cloak yourself as a way to give yourself space: you do need space. But this really isn’t space; it’s like the illusion thereof.

This calls attention to one fact, which is that you need to take your space. We can add this to the list of attributes of Jupiter passing through your 4th solar house of home and security. Taking your space is about creating physical space for your existence; improving that space; but more to the point, creating a mental environment spacious enough for your ideas and your beliefs, and the major renovation they are undergoing.

Mars Retrograde: The Quest for What You Believe

Most spiritual methods teach us to transform sexual desire into some kind of spiritual idea or quest. Most people go along with this, without questioning it. We want to be pure and see ourselves as pure people; while at the same time, really addressing sexuality is a confrontation.

I would suggest that in your current quest for identity and by extension, what you believe, that you proceed in the other direction. Claim back every form of sex that you have projected onto some kind of spiritual quest or goal. This will save you a lot of confusion. Currently your charts suggest that you are experiencing quite a bit of confusion about who you are and what you believe, which you have confused with something вЂspiritualвЂ™ when its proper category is really вЂsexualвЂ™.

In our society we make a big deal about whether someone is gay or straight, and that supposedly ends the conversation of sexual identity. I dare say it goes a lot further than this, since most people are neither straight nor gay, and many have relational and erotic tendencies they tend to paper over with normative ideas. This is not your nature, but a lot of free people do or believe things that are not in their nature, for a while.

The way to pursue your sexual reality is through curiosity. As far as I can tell, that is the original sexual thought form. However, curiosity is usually supplanted by guilt. The opposite of guilt is not innocence; it is curiosity. Your curiosity about yourself, your purpose in life and the ideas by which you live is burning in you right now, but it may be lurking right below awareness. Or some doubt has come to the surface, and you’re trying to chase it down.

You are not in pursuit of ‘an idea about yourself’, you are seeking an actual experience of yourself. You don’t need plans, you need a vision for who you want to be in the world. The issue actually involves your mental horizon: that is, what you’re able to see in your inner landscape, and how this defines your conception of existence.

From Sex to Religion and Back

One way to explore this horizon involves your relationship to your emotions. This of course is intimately related to your sexuality, since in the total universe of feelings, I would say that at least half of them qualify as involving your sexuality and sexual identity — particularly at this stage of your life.

Most of how the human race deals with this is through religion and its modern clone, spirituality. This is like the lagoon where most humans are trained to dump their erotic feelings, or try to. This does not work for you. The reason is simple: it does not leave enough room for an individual to make decisions and live the life they choose. This, if I am not mistaken, is your one and only goal. Most people view religion as a ‘part of their life’ rather than the actual foundation of their life. Your view is that your whole experience of life is your journey, spiritual or otherwise, and that it must make room for the totality of who you are. There’s no room to pretend that you’re not working under the same basic concepts all the time.

The thing is, you seem to have run into a limit. If this were my astrology, I imagine it would feel like a struggle over my philosophy of life, which on a deeper level is about questioning my faith in myself. I might be struggling to project my вЂselfвЂ™ into the future; you might say, looking for the story arc of my life. In honor of this question, I have three queries for you.

The first is, what was the religion of your father and his father? When you’re done with this investigation, you can check into your mom’s family’s religious history in pursuit of the same question, though it shows up first in the astrology as coming from your father’s side of the family. Most of us who are not beholden to religion make the mistake of thinking it had no influence on us. I would suggest we suspend this belief for now, and look directly into what your dad’s family believed. It might be useful to go back to your great-grandfather, so get ready to do a little investigative reporting.

I can give you a clue: you’re searching for the influence of patriarchy. We don’t give this a name lately, but patriarchy is the rulership of the world, and the world of ideas, by men. By definition it is not friendly to women. Not friendly to women means not friendly to sex (and vice versa). Once you have a fresh understanding of the religious concepts used by your family, you will have a much better understanding of how you can stretch your mental horizon as wide as you need to.

Another query involves how you feel about your creative process. Cutting to the chase, do you consider art dangerous? I’m not kidding. Art is dangerous, because it compels us to change, whether we create it or are subject to it. By its nature, art requires a kind of freedom that you ‘believe in’ but which you may not always grant yourself enough of. The reasons for this will come back to the religion question we started this section with, and those in turn relate to sex and the controversy over sexual desire: but there is a dimension of art involved; that is, a dimension of creative process. What both have in common are the constant challenge to the psychological and aesthetic status quo.

The values of one invested in creative process are different than those who live the life of a consumer or cog in the machine. Creative process involves constant change, and it involves indulging one’s fertility in relationship to the world. I could sum this up as, what risks are you willing to take, and what risks are you not willing to take, and why? The most meaningful of those involves your relationship to the unknown; and involves the way your outlook about sex influences your outlook on the world.

Maybe the astrology will offer you an image you can use. Mars is retrograde in your 9th solar house, that of your outlook on life, your long-term plans and your mental horizon. Mars represents your 5th solar house (Aries, which for you is about creative love, sexual experimentation and taking risks) and your 12th solar house (Scorpio), which is a picture of how your sex drive defines who you are — whether you like it or not; whether you resist that fact or not.

Which brings us back to the influence of religion in your life. Or is it sex? Or is it creativity? To put it simply, you would be a lot more liberated if you weren’t getting hung up in someone else’s concept of morality. Indeed, you have some prudish tendencies that don’t really fit who you are; and which have been coming under scrutiny in recent years. Outwardly you’re an extremely liberal person, but inwardly you tend to get caught up in the same moralism and control that lead to huge scandals that distract our attention from the real issues. The place to find and unhook that moralism is the past: as in past generations and understanding what information was handed down to you in the form of rules, limits and the feeling that you need to hide who you are — all of which is running in the background of your psyche.

The 2012 Dynamic and You

Mars retrograde is mandating a deep personal reassessment. It’s not an outer planet transit, but the setup is so rare that it counts for one. However, you are under a diversity of transits by slow-moving planets that actually form one configuration.

I am calling this the 2012 dynamic, as it’s phase one of the full-on 2012 alignment; which in some ways is more impressive than what we get in 2012 itself. Therefore it’s something happening now, and it involves four planets at the moment: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Pluto. In 2010 these planets team up and influence your chart in profound ways. I have been covering them as individual transits, and I would like to take a shot at looking at them as one setup, because they are all connected. Here are the houses involved, in order of house:

Pluto in Capricorn is in your 2nd solar house (resources and self-esteem). This is pushing you to deeper independence and self-awareness, deeply influencing you to stick to your values.

Jupiter conjunct Uranus in Aries will occur in your 5th solar house (creativity, risk-taking, art). This is a high-energy conjunction that is going to rock your world and in truth light up your potential like few things ever have. Both of these planets spend time in your 4th solar house as well.

Saturn in Libra is in your 11th solar house (hopes and dreams, community associations, income from work, public image). Saturn in your 11th house is also about finding your niche in life, and in business; your special place in the world. Saturn will still spend some time in Virgo, your 10th solar house, as well.

Imagine the changes of all three of these houses working together. Imagine the gods of change influencing your life in all these ways at the same time, as one process. I’ve meditated on this for a while and the words that come to mind are: a whole new gig.

Let me sum up your 2010 reading this way: The times we are living in call for a sense of adventure, if anyone alive is to have any fun. You possess precisely that sense of quest, and the wits to make the very most out of challenges that would easily derail the dreams of others. This is the moment you are living for. Live it well.

3 Responses to “Sagittarius Confidential (for Sun and ascendant)”

Eric,
I am just reading the Sagg 2010 and it was right on. i wished I had read it earlier this year I would have not been as tormented by the new direction my life is taking, but it is also very re-affirming that I am on the right track. When you think of it can you discuss the sexual stuff for people who have been in long term relationships where the love is strong but the expression of sexual desire is challenged by so much familiararity. How to keep it fresh in other words?

Eric, Thank you for the links to your 2010 Confidentials. We are getting tons of insight into ourselves and the r’ship from the Virgo,Leo,Sagittarius and Taurus readings for 2010. Lots of love and light to you. Much Thanks!!